


Was This The Face That Launch'd A Thousand Ships?

by ValiantBarnes (Cimila)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dating, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Illiad references, M/M, Multi, Past Violence, Reincarnation, Romantic Ineptitude, brief mention of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimila/pseuds/ValiantBarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne knows she's more than Helen; refuses to be a pawn for gods or men ever again. And if anyone tries to force her down that path, well, more fool them. Luckily for everyone, the only fools Ariadne associates with on a regular basis are Arthur and Eames.</p><p> </p><p>Alternatively titled,</p><p>  <b>;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Was This The Face That Launch'd A Thousand Ships?

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my fic for round 5 of the Inception Reverse Bang, from the end of last year. I always meant to cross post it to here but I never did? Round 6 art claims are about to happen and it's finally spurred me into it.
> 
> For [beautifulweddin](http://beautifulweddin.livejournal.com) over on lj, for her lovely art [which can be found here](http://beautifulweddin.livejournal.com/34720.html) (and the original posting can be found on my lj.)

There is no moment of realisation, for Ariadne. She does not wake up one day and suddenly know, does not see someone who could have been from her previous life across a crowded room and reel, knowing so much more than she did before. She is not either one of them, and she has always known herself, whoever that happens to be. Ariadne cannot change who she was, but she can change who she is, and who she will be. She’s ten when she starts to fully comprehend the enormity of what has happened to her, when she wakes in the middle of the night, trembling and crying even though she had no proof that any of it was real. Is real.

She _knew_ , and railed against her past, against her future.

She knows her own story, knows what will come. Follows the progression of her own life in books and in her mind. Won by a man, stolen by another - always, _always_ a thing for others. She is only twelve, but already people speak for her, about her, around her. Ariadne knows she is more than that, has always known even when she could do nothing about it. But it’s been more than two thousand years, and she will not submit. She is Ariadne now, and she will not be won or stolen.

Ariadne decided, then, that she would never again be a pawn of men, or of gods.

A man tries to snatch her off the street when she is thirteen, and she scratches and bites and punches and screams until he runs, without her. It is then that she knows that nothing is set in stone, her past is not her future.

There are two officers who come to ask her questions, to get a description of the man, and she knows them, knows them so well for all that they wear different faces than in her memories. She looks at them, and knows that they would have come for her if she’d been taken, as they had before; her wrathful half brothers to the last, for all they share no blood now. They smile down at her, and she isn’t sure whether she likes or hates the way she hears ‘ _Helen_ ’ everytime they say ‘ _Ariadne_.’

It makes her think, seriously, about the possibility of other reincarnations, about finding those she’d known before. She had wondered, once, idle, childish thoughts, but seeing the Dioskouroi, the twins she had so adored before, has brought the idea into sharp focus.

At thirteen, Ariadne isn’t sure if she ever want to see Melanius or Paris ever again.

By eighteen, she still hasn’t seen hide or hair of either of them, and tries to stop thinking about them, about her past, and focus on her future. There’s so much she could do, so many options she could choose from, and she spends her first summer after graduation moving from idea to idea, not sure what she wants her generic Arts degree to be a gateway for.

It’s then, tossing up between history and archaeology and linguistics with a specification in languages that are old and dead, like she should be, that she first sees him. He looks like himself, though the broad shoulders and assured swagger of Melanius don’t look quite right on someone barely twenty. He moves into the set of apartments a block away from where she grew up, where she’s spending the summer before uni, and it’s more difficult to avoid him than she ever imagined.

The first time she talks to him, though, she realises she’d worried for nothing. Though Ariadne knows him, knows who he was, he looks at her and sees no more than what anyone else does. The once King of Sparta does not know her, though the way his eyes linger says he’d like to. He introduces her to his flatmate, and friend, and she almost laughs until she’s sick, because Paris is just as handsome as he once was.

Avoiding the pair of them proved harder than avoiding just one, especially when they now know to look for her. But she is no longer Helen, and they’re mere reflections of the men who had far grander ambitions than a pair of twenty year old boys could ever dream.

At the end of the summer, Ariadne has decided upon architecture, and leaves her second home town far, far behind. It’s freeing, in a way that nothing else in her life has ever been. Helen never made it this far, there is no set path to follow or avoid, nothing she has to do but be herself.

Ariadne will make her own path, unencumbered by the ghosts of her past.

-

In a nice house in the suburbs, in a nice middle class family, there is a boy with violence under his skin. He has no problems with anger or rage, has no psychological problems, but nothing ever makes him feel quite as alive as violence, as fighting. He worries his mother, and confuses his step-father, though his half siblings never have cause to fear him. _Perhaps martial arts, for discipline_ , a guidance counselor suggests to his mother after his third fight of the year when he’s almost ten.

Except, Arthur doesn’t need discipline. He’s always controlled, even when there’s someone elses blood smeared across his knuckles.

He goes anyway, works his way through each of the classes his mother signs him up to, excels at all of them. When each class proves no better than the last at weeding out the violence, he’s moved on to the next. No one is surprised when, at seventeen, Arthur drops out of high school and joins the army.

That he doesn’t spend the rest of his life in the military surprises almost everyone.

It doesn’t surprise Arthur, who’d known the taste of battle all his life, though he had no reason to. He was weary of it before he ever enlisted, for all violence came as naturally to him as breathing.

-

Eames - not his real name, by any imagining, but the one he likes best - woke up after his seventh foray into dream share knowing he was Eames, a twenty something British forger who worked mostly on the right side of the law, with light hands and a faster mouth. He also knew that he was Hector, first son of Priam and Hecuba, Prince of Troy and dead as a fucking doornail because his younger brother couldn’t keep it in his fucking pants.

Not that he’s still bitter.

(Maybe a little bit.)

It was, safe to say, the strangest realisation of his life.

Explains why he’s always had rich tastes, though. And, once he thinks about it, the unexpected revelation explains a few other things, too. Like how he’d always known how to throw a punch, even though his pacifist, hippy parents certainly never taught him, and how he’d been good enough at javelin to represent at a national level without a single lesson. Which, now that he thinks about it - now that he can think about it - isn’t true. He remembers so many lessons he’d almost grown sick of practice, under the baking Trojan sun.

When _Troy_ comes out, Eames isn’t the least bit excited. He remembers dying well enough, he doesn’t need to actually _see_ it. He goes anyway, and can’t help but scowl when Achilles, that utter prick, drags the onscreen Hector around behind his chariot. What really annoys Eames, though, is that he has no idea whether it’s accurate. He doesn’t trust any of the literary sources, and his only recourse to find out what happened to his body after death would be to find someone else from the war who was reincarnated.

And therein lies the problem.

He’s never met anyone else who was reincarnated and, even if he had, he wouldn’t know it. It’s not like there’s any way to tell, after all. People don’t walk around with placards saying _‘Reincarnated, suffering some mild PTSD from Trojan war, let me know if you’re in a similar boat._ ’ And, even if Eames ever saw someone with such a thing, he’d probably think they were off their nut.

It’s two years until Eames finds someone who could give him the answers he’s been wanting since he saw that damn movie. He might never know if someone was Hannibal Barca in their previous life, but it turns out he’s able to spot someone he’d known, as Hector, in a heartbeat.

It’s nothing concrete, no traits he could point out and explain - just a gut feeling, as he looks at the pointman, that tells him the man before him had stood before the walls of Troy, just as he had. He’s fresh from the army, just moved into the semi-shady realm of privatised dream sharing, and he’s so familiar that it’s enough to keep Eames awake at night. The worst thing is, Arthur has no idea, so Eames has to figure it out by himself. Now, Eames loves a good puzzle, but he needs to have _actual clues_ , not just vague feelings and intuition.

And then one morning, halfway through the planning for the extraction when their architect has fucked up and the projections have started to riot, Arthur looks at Eames and the once Prince of Troy knows. The American - the fucking _Myrdmidon_ \- shot their architect in the head to wake him up, and turned to Eames to do the same.

Eames wakes up, and knows that Achilles has killed him twice, even if the second time was only in a dream.

That _fucking wanker._

-

Eames is introduced to Arthur as the forger, and he’s extraordinarily good at his job. Arthur couldn’t have asked for a better forger to work with for his first time dream sharing outside the military.

Arthur also wants to punch him in the face, but that’s neither here nor there.

Arthur tries to be professional, he really does, but if he takes slightly too much pleasure in shooting Eames in the head when they horrendously fuck up the trial run of the extraction, well, at least he only shot him in a dream.

It’s a completely unfounded dislike, which only frustrates him all the more. If there was a reason for it, Arthur could accept his dislike and move on, like a professional. Except, there’s no reason, and so he can’t move on. The worst part is that Eames seems to have picked up on his dislike. When they’d first been introduced, he’d smiled at Arthur like they were old friends; by the time the job ends, Arthur wonders if Eames is making his coffee terrible on purpose.

He is extremely passive aggressive, Arthur learns.

All Arthur can put it down to is the weird sense of déjà vu he gets when he looks at Eames. Not all the time, just when he catches sight of the man from the corner of his eyes, and there’s a whisper of something across the back of his mind, weight across his chest and shoulders, too heavy to be the suit he’s wearing. The sound of metal clacking together, faintly, when he moves.

Arthur hates déjà vu, has always hated it, and yet it’s dogged his steps since childhood.

He hates the feeling of remembering you’ve forgotten something. Only, when he looks at Eames and feels the extra weight, the phantom sensation leaves him feeling exhilarated rather than frustrated, and he thinks he might hate that more.

He spends too long staring at Eames just before they finish the job, is pretty sure the Brit caught him looking away, and resolves to avoid all jobs with Eames in the future. Only, his current employer seems to favour Eames, and Arthur finds he’s stuck with the man again and again and again.

(They work a job in north east Turkey, just as Arthur’s moving further and further away from legal forms of dream sharing. The sun beats down on them, and all Arthur can smell when he looks at Eames is blood - all the can think of is guns and explosions and the clash of swords and shields and war and he really, really hates Eames.)

The feeling of forgetting something, of looking at Eames face and knowing it, even before he’d known Eames, never really abates. He wishes there was a way that he could never work with Eames again, but dream sharing is a small community, and for the kinds of jobs Arthur likes to pull, Eames is the best, and Arthur won’t tolerate anyone but the best. He respects Eames, and his talents and skills, but it doesn’t mean he has to like him.

 

Once in awhile, Arthur thinks he hates Eames so much because, sometimes, when he thinks Arthur isn’t looking, he stares like he might just know Arthur from somewhere, too.

-

She wakes up and there he is, watching her.

She knows him instantly, like she knew Melanius and Paris, though she only ever saw him from the walls of Troy as he ploughed his way through the battlefield.

Like them, he doesn’t know, doesn’t remember. Not yet, at least. Soon, maybe, she thinks.

He smiles at her, but she can see his confusion.

He knows her, he just doesn’t know from where.

It’s him, as much as Dom Cobbs fucked up mind, that makes her storm out of the shitty, old studio apartment.

 

And it’s him, as much as the possibilities of dream sharing that bring her back.

-

As a child, Arthur didn’t dream in English. He’s in high school when he discovers it’s Ancient Greek, but by then the dreams are nothing more than the faintest recollection in his memory. He spent the dreams wandering around a house on a beach he’d never seen before, but knew as well as his own, and a kind woman who cares for him, who he calls μῆτερ, though she is not his mother.

Sometimes, she would bathe him - in water, in fire, no difference between them.

Ἀχιλλεύς, she’d greet him, always, even though his name was Arthur.

He never thought much of it, seeing as his brother once had a dream about riding a dinosaur in a horse show.

In hindsight, being able to speak a dead language at the age of five with no instruction was probably something he should’ve paid more attention to.

-

Once Cobb tells her she’s in a dream, it’s obvious. They’re in an outdoor cafe, in a modern city, but everyone around them is dressed as they would’ve been when she was still Helen. It happens again, and again and again, and it becomes a part of her totem. If they’re dressed for court in Ancient Greece, she’s the one who’s dreaming - her mind filling in the blanks in a way that would give up her secret, if anyone knew what to look for.

She still makes a totem for when she’s not dreaming, for when she’s building a dream for a purpose, for Cobbs piece of mind, and hollows out a chess piece, but that’s not the truth of it.

Inside the hollow of the bishop, just big enough to fit the tip of her finger, she painstakingly carved one thing.

Ἑλλην

-

When Ariadne storms out of the apartment, Arthur’s glad. She gives him the same feeling Eames does, though he doesn’t hate her for it. She doesn’t grate against him, the way Eames did when they first met.

Although, saying that implies that Eames no longer rubs him the wrong way, and that would be incorrect. Over the years, Arthur has simply learnt to put up with it, with him, much as he’d have liked to never work with him again. But, as always, it’s impossible to deny that Eames is good at what he does.

And, sometimes, they’re good together, in a way that has nothing to do with work, but those are very, very rare occasions.

When Dom leaves Arthur alone to organise the details of their new, insane job, Arthur appreciates the time to think, apart from everyone, and is glad that he doesn’t have to deal with both Eames _and_ Ariadne.

Which, of course, is why Dom comes back with Eames, and Ariadne finds that the lure of the PASIV is too strong to ignore. Sometimes Arthur thinks his long time friend does things just to frustrate him, like, for example, accepting Saitos offer.

Arthur goes through three packs of panadol in half a week, constantly surrounded by the feeling of déjà vu, constantly on the verge of remembering.

They’ve been working on brainstorming different methods of inception, and Arthur’s drawing a blank because, frankly, he doesn’t believe it can be done.

And then,

“Come now Arthur, surely inception isn’t your _Achilles heel_?”

What. The. Fuck.

Ariadne snorts a laugh into her coffee, and Eames is smirking like he knows Arthur won’t get it. He does, though - he gets it, and hates them both for it, unsure if the rush of new memories and thoughts and pieces of of his personality he’d never realised were missing are things he wants.

“Don’t tell me you think inception is possible?” He fires back, automatically, continuing to type even though he feels like freezing. He’d never give Eames the satisfaction of responding to any of his comments, even though it had broken whatever dam there was in Arthurs mind.

It felt like his entire world was restructuring around his new knowledge, around his new memories.

Of fucking course he can speak Ancient Greek, it’s his first fucking language, just as much as English is.

He looks up when he finishes typing, prompting Eames to answer his question by raising an eyebrow, though he doesn’t bother to listen to whatever Eames says in response.

Whatever Hector says in response.

And Helen, Ariadne, is reading something on her phone, drinking a coffee, like Eames/Hector hasn’t spent the last _four fucking years_ of making terrible fucking jokes that Arthur’s only now getting.

What the actual fuck.

Arthur, Achilles, whatever the fuck his own goddamned name is, needs a goddamned drink.

 

On his way back to the small apartment he’s renting, hours later, after they call it quits for the day, he buys a cheap, ceramic dinner set and a bottle of wine. He drinks two and a half glasses before he starts throwing the plates at the wall.

For once, the violence bubbling under his skin isn’t calm, focused - it’s fueled by anger, by pure rage, and after a life without such damaging passion, it feels like burning alive, like he’s coming alive.

He drinks the wine, and throws ceramics until there are dents in the wall and he can’t walk barefoot in his kitchen for fear of injury.

He still angry.

Throwing plates didn’t cut it, he needs something more, otherwise Arthur thinks the rage might burn him alive.

-

When Eames gets to work the next morning, he calls out a cheery hello to Ariadne when he sees her bag by the door, knows she probably didn’t go back to her flat the night before. He takes about five steps into the warehouse, moves aside a plastic flap, and then he’s flat on his back, staring at the high ceilings because Arthur, that complete fucking maniac, just punched him in the face with for no reason whatsoever.

“Did you just punch me in the face?” Eames can’t help but ask, even though he knows what happened, knows now the blur which’d been in the corner of his eye had been Arthur's fist rushing towards his face. Eames is surprised he doesn’t have a mild concussion now, actually, between Arthurs solid punch and his head hitting the concrete.

“Yes.” Arthur sounds remarkably satisfied by it, and walks over to his desk like nothing happened. Eames can’t help the way he’s staring, open mouthed, at the other mans retreating back. He pushes himself up off the hard concrete floor, and follows.

“Why, _exactly_ , did you just punch me?”

And then Arthur turns around, and Eames knows that he’s finally remembered. And, staring at him, it slowly starts to dawn on Eames why he’d walked into their base of operations only to be greeted by the business end of _Achilles_ fist.

“You did not just punch me for something that happened over _two thousand years ago_.” Arthurs face does a remarkable little contortion that Eames has seen many times over the years, one which he’s categorized as a cross between a smirk and a frown. He’s found it cute, a few times.

Now he finds it infuriating.

“You killed Patroclus.”

You have got to be fucking kidding.

Eames grits his teeth, says,

“You cannot be angry about that still.” The look on Arthurs face says quite well that he can.

He can’t believe it. The first thing Arthur does after remembering is punch him. Quite unfair if you think about it, given that,

“ _You already killed me for it_!” Eames can’t help but half shout, gesturing wildly with his hands. And Arthur, the fucking bastard, just shrugs like once isn’t fucking enough.

“Right. That’s it.” And, just like that, Eames decides how he’s going to handle Arthur.

Maybe Eames does have a concussion after all. It’s the only reason he can think of, later, for why he tackles Arthur through his desk, sending everything crashing to the floor.

Who in their right mind, after all, gets into a fist fight with Achilles?

-

Ariadne’s sleeping, actually sleeping, not hooked up the the PASIV, in one of the actually quite comfortable reclining chairs in the back of the run down apartment when she’s woken up to the sound of things breaking.

A lot of things breaking. She’s pretty sure that the crash which had woken her up was a desk being grossly misappropriated. If it’s the one with her laptop on it, she’s not going to be happy.

She jumps up and heads towards the sound, worried but also cautious. It’s a fight, that much is obvious now she’s awake, the sounds echoing through the open plan of the studio apartment. Ariadne’s got her phone out, trying to decide if Arthur, Eames or Cobb will be more likely to pick up.

She shifts enough that she can see around the corner, and all of the worried tension slips from her shoulders. It’s replaced, almost instantly, by annoyance.

Rolling around on the floor, Arthur and Eames are attempting to beat the shit out of each other, but are hindered by the way they’re _rolling around on the floor_ , like idiots.

“What the hell are you two doing?” She might be small, but Ariadne knows she has a hell of a voice - loud enough to break through whatever stupidity inspired that kind of wrestling in the first place. They both look up, Eames with the beginnings of what promises to be a very dark black eye, and Arthur with a split lip. Eames looks angry, but Arthur looks positively feral. They’d stopped rolling around at her voice, Eames pinned under Arthur, and Ariadne just kind of wants to leave them to it. She feels too tired, and too old, to deal with their shit.

“Arthur is apparently capable of holding a grudge for a very, _very_ long time.” Eames finally says, dryly, though he doesn’t try and untangle himself from Arthur.

Wait.

“What?” She asks, can’t think of anything else to ask, because the entire concept baffles her.

“Instead of a good morning when I walked in, I got a punch to the face.” Ariadne looks at Arthur. It’s been a few minutes since she walked in on their scuffle and interrupted and, with the benefit of a short cool down period, he looks a little embarrassed. Still angry, but also embarrassed.

“Not judging you Arthur, but - actually, yes, I am judging you. Who in their right mind holds a grudge for over two millenniums?” Ariadne doesn’t think he was alive for every year of those two thousand, but the point still stands.

“Like the pair of you weren’t angry when you found out.” Arthur defends himself, pushing himself up off the ground, off Eames, and walking towards his collapsed desk. He rights it with a scowl, and turns to glare at the Englishman when he finds his laptop to be irrevocably broken.

Eames opens his mouth to reply, and Ariadne wishes she were three steps closer so she could kick him in the ribs to shut him up. She hadn’t known him for long, not as Eames, but she’s pretty sure anything that comes out of his mouth is only going to rile Arthur further. Thankfully, he continues before Eames gets a chance to contribute.

“Besides, all _I_ did was punch Eames. He’s the one who tackled me.”

“So, you’re both children. Good to know.” Ariadne can’t help but say, glaring at the pair of them. The entire situation is completely ridiculous, and she needs a coffee before either one of them opens their mouths again. It’s then, before either of them can actually say anything to her assertion, that Cobb walks in. He looks around the room in shock. It is, admittedly, a vastly different scene to when he left the night before.

There’s a severe lean to Arthurs desk, from where one of the legs has beens snapped off just above the foot, and his papers are scatters about the room, a good deal of them under Eames who’s still on the floor. Arthur turns to scowl at him, too, and Cobb wordlessly hands over his coffee.

“I’m going to get another coffee.” He says, and leaves the room before anyone can protest, or try to explain and, rudely, before Ariadne can give him her order.

“We need to clean up.” She says when the door’s closed firmly behind Cobbs swiftly retreating figure. Eames levers himself up off the ground and walks out of the mess and into the kitchen. Arthur’s picking up pens and placing them on his desk. Only, they roll off the lopsided surface and drop to the floor again, where Arthur proceeds to pick them up and place them on the table. It’s a bit pathetic to watch, but Ariadne doesn’t really want to tell him to stop when he’s still scowling like that.

She’s not afraid, she just doesn’t want another tantrum. And, from what’s just happened, she’s certain that Eames would join in as well. Surely it’s not too much to ask for two grown men to _act like grown men_? Maybe it is.

She kneels down to start collecting papers instead of offering advice, doesn’t even try to organise them. She’s got most of them when the kettle boils, but Arthur’s still fiddling with the pens. He doesn’t look any more frustrated than when he started, though, so she continues to leave him to it until Eames emerges from the kitchen with two mugs and an empty cup made of hard plastic. He walks past Arthur, gives one of the mugs to Ariadne, places his own tea on his desk, before slamming the plastic cup onto Arthurs desk.

It gives an alarming groan at the sudden pressure, but doesn’t collapse. Eames walks back to his desk, and Arthur starts putting the pens in the cup. By the time Cobb gets back from getting coffee, their workspace is clean, but Eames and Arthur still aren’t speaking to each other. Ariadne isn’t sure if either of them are speaking to her, because she sure as hell isn’t about to talk with them.

They don’t get much work done that day, or the next.

-

Arthur’s lip is still a bit sore when Dom slams his laptop shut.

“I don’t know what happened between the three of you and, frankly, I don’t care.” That’s a lie, he’s one of the biggest sticky beaks Arthur’s ever met. If Dom thought he could get one of them to tell him what’d happened, he would’ve tried. But he’s known Arthur and Eames too long to try and approach them about their problems, especially their problems with each other - of which they’d had many, over the years - and Ariadne has apparently proved as difficult to crack.

“So, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to take a half day. Grab some lunch, maybe eat it in a park. You three are going to stay here and sort yourselves out so we can finish the job. I don’t care how you do it, just do it. After this job, none of you ever have to see each other again. Until then, try and remember how to act like adults.” And then he’s out the door. Part of Arthur wants to make a caustic remark about how that seems to be all Dom ever does with his problems, but he bites his tongue.

“ _I’m_ not the one acting like a child.” Ariadne says, but Arthur doesn’t look up to see if she’s glaring at him or Eames or, probably, both of them. He doesn’t look at either of them, in fact, just focuses on his work, and doesn’t think about them or their past, or his. Arthur doesn’t even notice when they leave without him, leave together, because he doesn’t care what either of them do.

He can’t pretend to not notice when they come back, however, because they pull their chairs up to his desk and drop take out on its already distressed surface. There’s a moment of silence, where the pair of them eye the containers to see if they’ll slide off the desk, and Arthur eyes his desk to see if it’ll retain its structural integrity.

“I had an idea.” Ariadne says, and Arthur finally looks up from his (new) laptop. Of course it’s her idea; he knew Eames would’ve been content to ignore each other and the entire situation, like Arthur was. It’s what they do, or, what they did before all this. Fight, ignore, fuck, ignore, repeat. It mostly worked - except Arthur doesn’t think it’s going to cut it anymore, not with everything he now knows. Which Eames had already known about, and still decided to - if Arthur thinks about any of that for any longer, he’s going to have a go at Eames again so, instead, he looks at Ariadne.

“Why don’t we spend the rest of the day getting everything off our chests.” Arthur raises an eyebrow, because she can’t think it’s that simple. Except, she does seem to think all they need to do is talk it out. Arthur chances a glance at Eames, and the look on his face suggests that he, like Arthur, is in no way convinced that it’s as simple as airing their grievances.

Which is why Arthur has no idea how he actually agreed to it. He throws his die on the counter when he goes to the bathroom after lunch, just to make sure he’s not dreaming. Or, maybe he hopes he’s dreaming, that all of this is just a dream, and he’ll be able to wake up. But no matter how many times he checked his totem after remembering, it said the same thing as it does now. Arthur’s awake, and he’s agreed to _talk out his problems_. With Eames, who killed the love of his previous life and, occasionally, _is_ his lover. And Ariadne, who he doesn’t actually have any particular problem with.

If pressed, he could come up with one. Right now, Arthur could look at a new born dog and find something to complain about.

The first...complaint? Grievance? Accusation? Arthur isn’t sure what, exactly, they’re calling them, but Eames is the first of them to voice one. Arthur’s barely back in his chair after lunch, reaching for his coffee, when the Brit breaks the silence with,

“Regarding your treatment of my body, post death: what’s more accurate, Homer or the movie _Troy_.” Arthur thinks for a moment, taking a drink, before deciding,

“I haven’t read anything by Homer, but from what I can remember of Troy, that part looked vaguely accurate.” Arthur’s been a bit too busy with his own memories to worry about any literature, and as he was never forced to read it for school, he’s got no idea what Homer says about his treatment of Hector’s, of Eames’, corpse. If it’s anything like what he actually did, Arthur might be persuaded to admit that Eames has some, small, reason to be annoyed. Maybe, after this inception job, he’ll have time to read _the Iliad_ and find out.

“You dragged my bloody body around behind your chariot?!”

“...That may have been… petty of me.” Arthur concedes, and Eames almost drops his mug.

“ _Petty_!? You desecrated my body!”

“You killed Patroclus!” Eames rolls his eyes.

“Yes, and _you killed me_ for it. And then desecrated my body. Really, who of the two of us has more right to complain?” Arthur scowls at him.

“You tried to take Patroclus’ body.”

“Oh my god, Arthur, are you serious?” Eames, very deliberately, places his mug down. It slides a few centimeters, before Arthur extends a finger to halt its march to the edge of the desk since Eames seemed too preoccupied glaring at Arthur to be sensible.

“Yes, I killed him, and attempted to take his body. I’ll cop that. **But** , you killed me and then _actually_ took my body. So, really, which one of us deserves to get punched in the face?”

“Still you.” Arthur argues. Ariadne sighs into her own mug, while Eames’ mouth drops open.

“ _You self righteous prick._ ”

-

All Eames is going to say about that entire conversation is this: It was a very, very long night.

 _And_ that Arthur’s a complete bastard, but Eames knew that already.

-

 

-

She’d been a bit worried about future jobs, because there hadn’t been time to exchange contact details before they’d left the plane - should’ve done it earlier, but it’d never seemed like a pressing need, and then it was too late. She had to content herself with the knowledge that Dom’d found her before, without her mobile number, so they’d get in touch when they needed her.

( _If_ they needed her, she tried not to think, which worked about as well as ‘contenting herself’ did.)

She’s woken up at quarter past five on a Monday morning by a text. From Arthur. She knows, because his name’s already in her contacts. She hadn’t even noticed the new name, and she has no idea when she left her phone unattended long enough for him to crack. Then again, reading the message, Ariadne found she couldn’t care too much.

_Extraction in Puerto Rico. Lmk if ur interested, will send info._

Ariadne doesn’t even bother to think about it. Of course she’s interested. Arthur replies almost instantly with flight times for her to choose from. She doesn’t really want to know how he knows what city she’s currently in, and just assumes Arthur keeps tabs on his… friends? It seems like something he’d do. What she hadn’t expected, is the text that comes after she shoots back her preferred flight time.

_:D_

-

Arthur works two jobs before he sees Ariadne again. It could be called a pleasant surprise, but he’s the one who organised the team, so it’s no surprise to him. Likewise, Eames’ smirking visage can’t be called an unpleasant surprise, much as Arthur wants to call it that.

The extraction goes off without a hitch, as does the one after. The three of them, Arthur begrudgingly admits, are a very cohesive team. A good, professional team, which means,

“No, Mr. Eames, I already have plans for this evening.”

Arthur does not, in fact, have plans, but anything sounds better than doing shots at a dingy Puerto Rican bar with Eames and Ariadne.

-

After their second job together, Ariadne gets a text from an unknown number.

_**You know, there’s cold, then there’s northern Russia in winter cold.** _

Moments later,

_**I had to steal two fur coats! Two!** _

Ariadne can’t help laughing, now that she’s pretty sure of who’s texting her.

_**Also, you should probably change the pattern for your phone lock. ;)** _

She saves the number under Eames, and sends him a picture of the sun streaming in through her window. He sends back an image of what is possibly his own face, surrounded by layers and layers of clothes.

-

It’s not exactly hard to figure out Ariadne’s snapchat.

Eames figures if he has to get sick of all the snow, someone else has to as well.

And after that, he’d thought he’d pull back a bit, not send a ridiculous amount of snaps. Then Ariadne snaps him a picture of her slippers and, well, Eames has never had the best self control.

-

San Juan, Cuito, Bern, Cairo, Perth, Qingdao, Oslo, Dakar - eight different cities, eight times Arthur’s turned down an invitation for post-extraction drinks, eight different times he’s completely ignored Eames outside of a professional capacity.

Ariadne’s getting to know Eames better, and she’s starting to realise how annoyed Eames is by the constant dismissal.

He is, essentially, sulking.

It’s great.

She takes great joy in teasing him about his Arthur problem. What she doesn’t say, is how Arthur takes her out to lunch sometimes, has taken her to dinner once or twice.

Anyway, she’s pretty sure that Arthur’ll get sick of ignoring Eames - eventually. Probably. And it’s not quite ignoring, it’s just… dismissal. Which might actually be more problematic, actually, but Ariadne isn’t thinking about that right now, or at all. She’s plotting what she always does, when she’s just past tipsy and watching Eames hustle pool.

How to lock Arthur and Eames into a cupboard, and then what sort of bets she’d be willing to take.

She’s sure Yusef, at the very least, would be willing to place a wager. And, more than likely, every person they’ve ever worked with who’s been annoyed by their constant bickering.

-

They’re in Darwin, Australia, during summer, and it’s a terrible, _terrible_ idea. He hadn’t been off the plane for three minutes before he started to sweat. Eames would’ve turned the job down, were it not for the ridiculous wage he’d been offered - which now sits neatly in his bank account. Another job, finished.

Only two good things came from the Darwin job; the money, and Arthur started talking to him outside of jobs again.

 _Why_ they started to talk again, however, is another reason why Eames never, ever wants to return to the top end of Australia.

Ariadne picks up at a bar and Eames realises, rather abruptly, that he’s got a problem with that.

_**We’ve got a problem.** _

He texts Arthur, and if he implies that the problem is job related so that the American replies, well, Eames never said he played fair. He throws back the rest of his schooner before he answers Arthurs call.

“So, turns out I might have a bit of a thing for Ariadne.” There’s silence on the other end, before,

“And this is my problem, how?”

“Well, it’s not, really. I mean, she just went home with someone, or is taking him back to the hotel, or, I don’t know, actually - anyway, that’s not really the problem. The problem is, how are we both going to date Ariadne when you won’t speak to me.”

Eames can practically hear the withering look on Arthurs face through the silence, and smirks to himself.

“You know you’re ridiculous.” Arthur says, then hangs up. Eames slides off the barstool and saunters out of the pub. He’s barely three meters out the door when he gets a text.

_418\. Door unlocked._

-

They finish a job in Nice, and Arthur agrees to join them when they find a shitty bar to drink and play pool and darts in. Ariadne high fives Eames when Arthur’s grabbing his coat, and surreptitiously makes an early exit when they’re distracted arguing about which local tap wine is better.

On the taxi ride back to the hotel, she sends

**;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D**

to both Arthur and Eames about a million times.

She’s happy for them, working their shit out. She kinda wishes that there was room for her in their gay telenovela romance, but it doesn’t bother her too much. They’re still friends, after all. And whenever she starts to get a bit sad over it, she sends Eames terrible snapchats where she attempts to do the winky face with her actual face.

-

Ariadne disappears when they’re arguing over wine, which does nothing to stop their argument. Instead, it changes from wine to whose fault the argument was.

The pair of them still end up in Arthurs hotel bed, of course, but still:

 **Date 1** \- _failure_.

-

Arthur snaps up a job in New York, and Eames produces three tickets to a Broadway performance. Ariadne sits between them, and it’s a great night.

Somehow, between leaving the theatre and ordering a cab, Ariadne disappears. The only reason they know she wasn’t kidnapped by some shady people they’ve pissed off is the ridiculous texts.

**;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D**

**Date 4** \- _failure_.

-

The job was an absolute crap shoot. Ariadne’s pretty sure she hasn’t washed her hair in about a fortnight, and she can’t remember the last time she showered. She’d gotten shot in the head, courtesy of Arthur, and then had to break a mans nose (not in the dream, either).

They’re in a McDonalds in Liechtenstein, three countries away from where they’d had their job. It’s barely off a highway, and the car they’d parked outside had been less than legally acquired.

Arthur has blood in his hair, almost unnoticeable.

They all feel like shit, and look like it to. There’s a four star hotel down the road, and they get a suite with the biggest bed they can find and, after they all have showers, curl up like puppies in the middle of the bed.

Eames is like a giant furnace, and he snores a tiny bit. He’s also an octopus, and Ariadne isn’t sure whether she’s surprised or not. Arthur looks resigned to it, on Eames’ other side, phone in hand as he makes sure the rest of their team got away. He’s still awake when Ariadne drifts off, but still asleep when she wakes up in the… afternoon, really.

She orders pancakes from room service after another shower, enough for all three of them, and they eat together on the bed.

( **Date 15** \- _...tentative success?_ ( _Finally_ ))

-

**Date 16 -** _about thirty five steps back; a fiasco._

_Never. Ever. Repeat._

_Ever._

-

 ** **Date 20** ** \- _continued failure_.

“Maybe we should stop waiting for extractions to take Ariadne out on a date?” Eames suggests, after their latest failure.

“Maybe Ariadne just doesn’t want to date us.” Arthur shoots back, as much as he can, lying face down on the lounge.

“She would have told us by now if she wasn’t interested. We’re just, apparently, terrible at this. How on earth did _we_ start to date if we’re so bad?”

“Hate sex, friends with benefits, hate sex, bonding over how much we suck at dating Ariadne.” Arthur deadpans, finally sitting up and reaching for his laptop.

“You think that’d work again?”

“You’re an idiot, I don’t even know why I like you.”

“You like me?” Eames smiles, teasing, and Arthur rolls his eyes.

Ariadne texts them, later.

****;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D****

“Really starting to hate that fucking emoji.”

“It’s like she’s taunting us.”

-

**_**Doing anything?**_**

Ariadne had been napping, actually, until her bright, loud noise her phone made almost had her falling out of her beanbag.

_**You’ve still got that Paris apartment, yes?** _

She hadn’t known Eames knew where she lived, that’s more of an Arthur thing, but she replied her assent anyway.

_**Walk out to the balcony. Please.** _

If it was anyone else texting her, apart from Arthur, she would’ve locked her doors by now. Instead, Ariadne rolls out of her beanbag, heaves herself up from the floor, and steps out onto her tiny balcony.

“Did we wake you?” Eames laughs up at her, and Arthur waves, as much as he can with two take away coffees in his hand. That explains how Eames knew where she lived, then. She’s known them for quite a while now, and knows when to ignore their weird habits. Like how Arthur seems to always know where she is, and has Eames’ new mobile number practically before Eames himself does. And how Eames can get his hands on almost anything.

She’s pretty sure that there’s a missing Van Gogh in his New York apartment, actually.

“Yeah, but I’ll accept coffee as an apology.” Eames laughs into his own coffee, and Arthur pretends like he’s fumbling the coffee that’s hers.

They’re both absolute losers, but they’re her losers.

( **Date 22** \- _...success?_ )

-

 **Date 23.5** \- _Losers._

“I really thought it was going good this time.” Eames says into his mimosa.

Arthur just throws back the rest of his whiskey.

-

Date 29 - Never give up, never surrender.

-

Eames honestly can’t think why they’d never thought to go see a movie, and then dinner, before. It’s the penultimate date. Sure, it’s not very romantic, or exciting, and you’re sitting in a dark room for over an hour, but it’s fun. They get to make sarcastic comments about the plot, and the dialogue, and the cinema’s empty enough no one says anything.

-

Dinner is great, and the movie was funny - their commentary, at least. Dinner was nice, not too fancy. Just a small Greek restaurant, which has decided up a vague ‘Ancient Greek’ theme. They spend the first five minutes side eyeing each other, and giggling like idiots. No jokes are funnier, or stupider, than in jokes. She’s glad they can laugh about it now. Arthur hasn’t brought up Patroclus’ death for at least three months and, therefore, the last time Eames shouted about his abused corpse was at least three months ago.

Progress.

If it were a date, it would’ve been in her top five. Actually, it was more like a date than some dates she’d actually been on.

Ariadne’s glad that they don’t make her feel like a third wheel all the time. If they did, she wouldn’t want to hang out with the both of them so much. Or, she still would want to, but wouldn’t actually do it.

Honestly, Arthur and Eames are probably two of the best friends she’s ever had. It makes work much more fun than it would be, otherwise.

( **Date 34** \- _So close._ )

-

Supposedly accurate historical movies set in Ancient Greece - bad idea. Or, good idea? They threw more popcorn at Arthur’s tv than they ate, and complained for most of the movie. But all three of them spent it grinning like lunatics.

But Ariadne left without a backwards glance at them, waving over her shoulder. And, later,

**;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D**

**Date 38** \- _??????????????????_

-

They’re going to meet at an Indian restaurant, just around the corner from the office space they’ve rented for planning purposes. She sent Arthur and Eames on ahead to order while she finished planning the city. Hopefully, the food will be almost ready by the time she gets there, because she’s ridiculously hungry. Both Arthur and Eames know what to order for her, so Ariadne’s not worried about not liking what they get.

She’s also not worried about someone trying to mug her, but apparently she should be.

The restaurant is literally around the corner, she can see the light from the windows reflecting off the ground, and she is not in the mood. What she should do is take her wallet out, slowly, throw it away and run. And she is, honestly, when Arthur’s voice sounds from around the corner, just out of sight.

“Ariadne, is that you?” What she wants to know is, why the hell isn’t he in the restaurant, waiting for their food?

He rounds the corner, and her would be mugger panics. Ariadne has no idea what he’s going to do, but he’s getting closer to her, and she’s not about to get stabbed when dinner is so close. It’s a relatively simple movement for her now, wrenching his wrist the right way so he drops the knife in a way that won’t hurt her. She breaks his nose as a follow up, and he goes running off the way she’d just come from, and off into the darkness.

It’s a large change from the first time she broke anyones nose, when she’d thought about it for hours afterwards, and had almost broken her hand. Since then, both Arthur and Eames had taken it upon themselves to teach her self defence. This is the only non-work related incident she’s had to use those skills in.

Barely a few seconds after the man fled off into the darkness, both Arthur and Eames reached her. Eames had still been around the corner, but they came to a stop in front of her at the same time.

“Are you alright?” Eames asked, as they both attempted to pat her down and see if she’d been hurt. It’s almost like, somehow, they’d managed to miss the way she’d sent her assailant fleeing into the night.

“Of course.” They continued to check for injuries, anyway, regardless of how she tried to wave them off. When they were finally satisfied, they both looked over her shoulders (well, over her head, Ariadne had no delusions about her height) as if they wanted to chase the man down, long gone though he now was.

Having seen them both fight together during work, both in and outside of dreams, she’s quite sure that a team up to pursue a mugger is the very definition of overkill.

“Why aren’t you both in the restaurant?” Ariadne tries to deflect, but they don’t take the hint.

“No free tables, but there should be one free soon. Sure you’re not hurt?” Arthur asks, and Ariadne can’t stop how she rolls her eyes.

“I’ve started wars, my father was a swan, my brothers will never die. I’ve been taught by Achilles and Hector, both of whom are giant pains in my ass. A _mugger_ did not hurt me.” She assures them. Thankfully, they seem to get the point.

“Now, can we go back and wait for our table?”

Both Arthur and Eames hover more than they usually do - and it’s only after this that she realises that they’ve been hovering at all - and end up knocking not one but two cups of water over the table.

They blame each other both times, of course, and Ariadne just laughs.

( **Date 40** \- _The fact that they still don’t know is actually pathetic at this point. More pathetic, that is._ )

-

**Dates 42 through 45 -**

**;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  
** ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D 

\- _if ever there was to be a book about how not to date, neither Arthur or Eames would ever write for it, but they should._

-

“You know, I really don’t think Ariadne has any idea that we’re trying to date her.” Arthur muses one night ( **Date 47** \- _absolute failure, don’t even ask_ ), leaning against the bathroom door. Eames, bent over the bathroom sink, scrubbing at the stain on his paisley shirt and scowling, shakes his head.

“That’s ridiculous, of course she knows. We haven’t exactly been _subtle_ about it. We gave her a bouquet of flowers, you pulled out her chair. I didn’t even flirt with the waitress because I was too busy flirting with her. And you, of course. Do you even know how much I paid for dinner?” Eames grumbled, ignored the way Arthurs reflection raised an eyebrow.

“That money came out of your own pocket, did it?”

“Don’t gripe, Arthur.”

-

 **Date 48** -

They’re at a cafe, down the road from her Parisian apartment. It’s been… weird. They’ve done small talk, but nothing apart from that, until three coffees are in front of them.

“We have a question for you.” Arthur starts, as Eames starts to put sugar after sugar in his coffee, as always. Arthur spares a moment to look at him and grimace, as he always does, while Ariadne looks at the amount of sugar he pours in with a sick sort of fascination, as always. It almost physically hurts but, _as always_ , Eames is completely unrepentant.

“ _I don’t like the taste of coffee, that’s why it’s always got a flavour and as much sugar as possible,_ ” he’d told her once, months and months ago now. The thought still horrified her. She’d asked him why he didn’t just get tea, and his impassioned speech about how cafe’s never do it right still rings in her ears.

“Right, I’ll just ask, since both of you are entranced by my coffee.” Eames says, a bit too loud, definitely too amused.

“Ariadne, dear, are you aware that we’ve been dating you for the last, hmm, how long would you say, Arthur?”

“Two years. Ish.”

Silence.

If someone tried an extraction on her at that exact moment, they would get nothing except a blue screen. She thinks of nothing for exactly seventeen seconds, long enough for both men to get nervous, before her brain reboots.

“You’ve been dating me for two years. Roughly two years. Both of you.”

“Yes.” They say, together. Like a couple - because they are actually a couple, unlike the three of them who are, most emphatically, _not_.

“Secretly.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say secretly. We didn’t know it was a secret.” Eames seems very embarrassed by this, and Ariadne wonders if she’s allowed to pour coffee over someone’s head in public.

“We thought you knew.” Arthur adds, and Ariadne’s pretty sure, at this point, that even the waitresses might forgive her for the mess if she explained the situation.

Two. Fucking. Years.

“Did either of you ever, you know, think to actually ask me out on a date? With words? Sign language? A text?” Their silence is very informative. Eames opens his mouth, probably to say something along the lines of ‘ _we’re doing it now_ ’ and if those words actually come out of his mouth, Ariadne will not be held responsible for what she does. In order to preserve her sanity, Ariadne holds a hand up. He shuts his mouth.

There’s silence, blessed, blessed silence, and Ariadne picks up her coffee.

Arthur goes to speak, and Ariadne holds a hand up again, and shakes her head. Obligingly, he also doesn’t say a word. In this manner, Ariadne makes sure neither man says a single word while she drinks her coffee. After a few minutes, they both start to sip at theirs as well.

It’s a wonderfully silent moment.

A waitress comes over then they’re done, and Ariadne orders them each another coffee. The silence continues while they wait for their new drinks, and while Eames disfigures his coffee. They both look appropriately shame faced, and Ariadne decides it’s time to speak.

“Switch coffee.” She says, and it takes a moment before they understand. Arthur looks like he’s going to be sick.

“You can’t be serious.” Eames protests. All Ariadne does in response is raise an eyebrow.

They switch coffees.

Watching Eames drink Arthur’s black coffee, and Arthur force down the sludge Eames tries to pass off as coffee, is a wonderful, wonderful moment. She waits til they’re each on their fifth, very reluctant, sip, before she stops them.

“You’re both very, very lucky that I like you.” She smiles at them and, hesitantly, they smile back. The spend a few minutes just smiling at each other over the table like fools, before Arthur goes to take a sip of his coffee and hurriedly puts it back down.

“Can we switch back?” Arthur pleads, and Ariadne laughs.

“Go for it. I can’t believe you drank it.” Ten years later, Ariadne will still be laughing at the faces Arthur and Eames made when they drank each other’s coffee. Honestly, she should’ve recorded it. If they ever fuck up so monumentally again, she will.

“Does this mean you’ll date us?” Eames asks, stretching a hesitant hand out over the table after he’s got his coffee back.

“You might both be too stupid to date.” She warns them, before placing her hand over Eames’, and then over Arthurs.

“But I’d love to.”

~~**Date 48 -** ~~

**Date 1** \- _Success_

-

 

-  
Arthur, it had to be noted, had never had an Ariadne problem. He had an Eames problem. Continues to have an Eames problem. Eames, to be frank, was a problem. He just wanted it pointed out before people started trying to pinpoint whos fault everything was.

The answer, as should be obvious, is Eames.

Not Arthur.

 

Eames continues to ~~politely~~ disagree.

 

Ariadne refuses to take sides. Mostly.

 

-

 

( **Date ∞** -

“What god is so hot you could fry an egg on him?” Eames asks, amid a chorus of groans. Arthur kicks at his feet, where they’re all tangled together at the base of their bed, and Ariadne throws her paperback.

“I will smother you before you finish that joke.” Arthur promises, to which Eames replies,

“You can Troy, but you won’t succeed.” There’s a second, where Eames grins at Arthur, and Arthur contemplates the logistics of dumping Eames’ body in the nearest riverway, then Ariadne chimes in with,

“I Sisyphus what you did there.”

Arthur is quite sure that he could justify double homicide in a court. You have no idea how many shitty, shitty puns and jokes he’s heard. In the end, though, Arthur just slumps back against the mattress before saying,

“I Hades puns.”

There’s silence, before both Eames and Ariadne cheer so loud they get a literal noise complain the next day.

They hang it next to the Van Gogh.)


End file.
